In Praise of Flattery

Christine Schwartz Hartley

In Praise of Flattery (Stages)

by Willis Goth Regier

University of Nebraska Press

$21.95 List Price

I am not about to flatter Willis Goth Regier by using one of the hundreds of quotations in his latest book, In Praise of Flattery, to start this review in style. Instead, I will begin by saying that in cramming twenty years of research into a precious few pages, he has created a wobbly book.

With its catchy title and easy format—nine short chapters subdivided into 128 rules such as “Flattery is spoiled by excess” (Rule

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